A Reply to David Gordon and Roberta A. Modugno’s Review of Escape From Leviathan (Journal of Libertarian Studies,
Vol. 17 No. 4, 101-109)

David Gordon and Roberta
A. Modugno (G&M) begin by providing a useful and, initially,
accurate brief exposition of Escape From
Leviathan.[1] It is agreeable to be generally understood and it makes being criticised much
more productive. G&M then go on to suggest that “People often do not like
to surrender their pet views even when evidence seems to show them false.”
(102) All people have some views that they both think true and value. But to
refer to these as “pet views” is at least suggestive of being an ad hominem. It is ostensibly, and
erroneously, to suggest that such views ought therefore to be taken less
seriously by others. Also, if the evidence really seemed to people to show
their own views to be false, then how could they continue to hold those views?
G&M appear to be implying that people can partly choose what they believe.
That view has always seemed a false one to me and one that has the unfortunate
consequence of stopping debate on the supposition that it is futile to argue
against beliefs thus held (indeed, it would be futile to debate if we could
choose what we believed).

Now, if we are to explain away recalcitrant evidence (and
surely we should try to do so, for evidence itself needs to be tested), then
presumably we might “devise an auxiliary hypothesis.” There cannot be anything
wrong with this unless the auxiliary hypothesis is false, irrelevant or, as
G&M suggest, it makes the combined hypothesis go “too far” (even all the
way) towards making it “immune from refutation.” (102-103) And thus the
argument is, at least, not cogent. They attempt to show that I do sometimes go
“too far.” It should be noted that G&M propound the hypothesis that my view
of liberty and welfare is unsound. My response is that they themselves come up
with one “convenient auxiliary hypothesis” (106) after another to try to defend
that position without ultimate success.

G&M next note my defence of a priori rationality. They wonder how consistent this is with “other parts of [my] project.” (103) But I concede, and even argue, in Escape From Leviathan that, as G&M
put it, “there are logical connections between liberty and welfare that can be
known a priori.” It does not
follow that this is inconsistent with the “Popperian view that one’s
theory is, at best, a conjecture that has survived testing.” For they have
clearly mistaken Popper’s scientific epistemology (requiring empirical
falsification, which they explain) with his, later, generalised critical
rationalist epistemology (that all theories are conjectures that we criticise
as best we can but cannot usefully attempt to support). Thus to argue that
there are some a priori connections
between liberty and welfare does not entail that these have been, or can be,
given positive epistemological support. It is just to try to show that they
withstand criticism so far as we can tell. Critical rationalism does not rest “on the contention that nature does not disclose necessary relations to us.” For critical rationalism can accept that there are necessary relations in
mathematics, for instance, but says this does not mean we can avoid having to
conjecture proofs that might turn out eventually to be faulty (as Leonard Euler, 1707-1783, showed was true in
various cases).

Though having said that, I cannot see how there are
necessary relations in “nature” (the physical world) or how ‘she’ might “disclose
them” to us. Nor do I see that “philosophy is an a priori discipline” tout court. Philosophical problems are
often affected by advances in science and technology.[2] We would not expect that of what is purely a priori. My current view of the a
priori is that it is a matter of degree and not always clear. The a priori aspects of rationality, for
instance, come down to very general truths that we can assume without usefully
testing or criticising them at every turn (though doing so occasionally is
fine). For instance, it is conceivable that (other) human beings are not agents at all but unconscious, or that some
agents make perverse utility choices (somehow choosing what gives them less
utility), or that people’s limbs do not move as they choose, etc. If any of
these things were systematically true then economics as a discipline explaining
the world would be in trouble. But such bizarre assumptions do not withstand
criticism or testing (as I argue of sundry similar assumptions in the chapter
on rationality in Escape From Leviathan).
If it seems to some people that this is to deny that there really are a priori truths, then I could drop that
expression with anyone who felt that way. However, it does seem to be a very
useful term to me and some near equivalent would be needed to replace it
(perhaps the humorous translation of knowing things armchairiori). Nor, at risk of being pedantic, is philosophy itself
really a “discipline.” It is too fundamental and diverse to have the structure
of a discipline.

G&M state that “Mises does not claim that everyone is
out to maximize certain pleasant sensations, or minimize painful ones” but that
“Lester maintains exactly that.” (104) This is odd. Mises sometimes at least
appears to slide into this error, as I point out in Escape From Leviathan (16):

Strictly speaking the end, goal, or aim of any action is always
the relief from a felt uneasiness. (Human
Action, 9[3])

What a man does is always aimed at an improvement of his own state of satisfaction. (Ibid, 242)

By contrast, I take pains to avoid this error. I do indeed
state that “What [not ‘When’ as G&M have it] one desires or wants to do,
one has utility (felt satisfaction, in a very general sense) at the thought of
having, achieving, or doing. This requires conscious ... desires to
motivate us as agents.”(Escape From
Leviathan, 47) But I argue that such utility cannot be reduced to hedonism,
eudaemonism or psychological egoism. The course of action that we find most ‘satisfying’ might be some terrible duty. But it must somehow vie with other
possibilities and satisfy our desires more than any alternative action. Or why would we choose it? I admit that I find
mere ordinality of choices very strange as they seem to lack “the notion of
conscious beings.”(Ibid. 48)

They then ask why if someone purchases a loaf of bread “his
act of purchase be accompanied by feelings, e.g., anticipatory hunger pangs?” I
do not suggest “anticipatory hunger pangs” are necessary, only that some
feeling is. “Why is it not enough if one recognizes a reason to act in a
certain way?” Because one must feel that it is a sufficient reason—and better than any alternative. I can recognise
or understand that something is a reason without being motivated by that
reason. By analogy, I can recognise or understand a theory without the feeling
that it is true. Only our feelings can change intellectual apprehensions into
actual desires and beliefs. However, these feelings can be David Hume’s “quiet
passions” especially if there is not much to compete with them at the time.
And so they might be assumed to be ‘pure reason’ that is motivating or
persuading us. Like Hume, I cannot see how pure reason could do this. I do not
say that it is “part of the concept of action that feelings must always direct
a choice.” But then I tend to follow Popper in thinking that conceptual
analysis is not very useful in solving real philosophical problems.

Though my explicit theory of liberty is “very different from
that held by most libertarians” (105) I assert that it is what libertarians
implicitly hold or at least require. I do not, of course, see how liberty could
coherently be defined “by reference to coercion” because in the plain English
sense ‘coercion’ (the use or threat of force to compel behaviour) is neither
necessary nor sufficient to make an act unlibertarian.

G&M look at my discussion of Salman Rushdie’s offending
many millions of Muslims. Perhaps a similar kind of problem arises in principle if, as they suggest, we simply make the
auxiliary assumption that “a large number of Muslims was upset by the mere fact
that he did not adhere to that religion.” But it is not really the “same
problem” just because there are so many who might upset Muslims this way.
Still, we can ignore the improbability of that auxiliary assumption and grant
that only Rushdie is causing annoyance in this way. How does this “eliminate
the issue of provocation by the minority”? Why are the Muslims not ‘provoked’
just because Rushdie did not need to take any action to provoke them? (Or might
G&M mean that this general issue does not need a “minority” to arise? I
never thought it did, but then there is a weaker case for suppressing so many
and I wanted as strong a case as possible.)

I certainly do not make a “distinction between harm and
benefit” (as G&M state). My distinction is between cost and benefit. I
explain that ‘harm’ is hopeless for the job, as it is libertarian objectively
to harm people with their permission and it is not libertarian to save people
from objective harm against their wishes (Escape
From Leviathan, 59-60). Can G&M show that my distinction between cost
and benefit “faces collapse”? They suggest that “In ordinary terms ...
Rushdie’s failure to profess the Muslim faith ... fails to confer the benefit
they would obtain were he to join them. But if the Muslims find upsetting
Rushdie’s refusal ... they are harmed.” I unpack this rather differently in Escape From Leviathan. I am not really
interested in how this might be put in “ordinary terms” but how the assumed
theory of liberty is correctly applied here. It might well flout common sense.
If Rushdie’s non-Islamic status means that Muslims have lower utility than if
Rushdie did not exist, then his existence is an imposed cost to the Muslims.
Whether his conversion would only remove this cost or also be a positive
benefit does not alter this fact. Thus the cost-benefit distinction is not
threatened by this example.

Nor do I see that “Lester recognizes this point” when I say
that “Others’ benefits impose no cost on us except insofar as we feel
unavoidably covetous or envious.” (Escape
From Leviathan, 77) It is not Rushdie’s benefits that are imposing a cost
by his not being Islamic. G&M mention ‘my’ example that, in their words,
“someone’s failure to share water from his well makes his covetous neighbor
upset, thus harming him. Here precisely the failure to benefit someone becomes
a harm to that very person.” (106) Strictly, my main example was that you do
not impose a cost (not “harm”) by producing and monopolising a well, with the
qualification “except insofar as we feel unavoidably covetous or envious” (and
that these emotions are usually not unavoidable but largely self-inflicted).
However, let us again grant G&M’s auxiliary hypothesis and assume that
there are some serious and systematic examples where failing to benefit someone
is itself primarily what imposes on them, through unavoidable envy or lust or
whatever. That would still not show that benefits and costs conceptually
collapse into each other. Rather, they would be examples of particular
practical inseparabilities. They would not vitiate the conceptual distinction
or, of course, all cases where they can in practice be separated.

G&M find “weak” my quoted argument that “people can more
or less control their emotional response to mere opinions—especially in the
long term. The angry Muslims more or less chose to react angrily.” Lester has
“simply helped himself to a convenient auxiliary hypothesis.” Yes, that is
right. We ought to help ourselves to convenient auxiliary hypotheses as freely
as our imaginations can allow. As I said at the start, this is only a mistake
if they are not true, or relevant, or make the thesis less falsifiable. It is
positively desirable if someone “produces out of thin air a hypothesis that, he
hopes, will defuse the counterexample.” Putative (not to beg the question)
counterexamples need themselves to be criticised. And all hypotheses are
ultimately unsupportable assumptions that come “out of thin air” (our
imaginations). This is palpably not to “render [my] conception immune from
falsification.” It is merely to argue that a particular attempted falsification
does not work for the reason given.

I do not see how my reply to the criticism using an
“auxiliary hypothesis” makes my original conjecture “less bold.” Suppose I
conjecture that there are no talking dogs. G&M suggest that there is a
well-known talking dog in Alabama. I go to Alabama to check and discover that
this appears to be, rather, a very clever ventriloquist act. My “auxiliary
hypothesis” reply to G&M does not make my original conjecture one whit less
bold. I am not making dogs dumb by definition. I continue to conjecture that
dogs cannot talk “simpliciter.” The
auxiliary hypothesis that a particular putative counterexample is a clever
ventriloquist act does not modify the original conjecture. Of course, if an
‘auxiliary hypothesis’ is defined as being one that modifies the original
conjecture, then I deny that I have made one (but that was not what G&M
originally claimed). G&M then “suggest as a criterion for an auxiliary
hypotheses [sic] that it itself be a
conjecture that has survived testing.” From a falsificationist perspective, it
is utterly irrelevant that a conjecture has withstood tests thus far (only a
justificationist would think that relevant). It is only relevant that it is
testable. And in broader critical rationalist terms, it need only be
criticisable. My, initial, point that people have some considerable control
over their emotional responses is quite criticisable. There are all sorts of
things one might say against it (though I, naturally, conjecture that they will
not suffice to refute it). So my reply meets critical rationalist requirements,
and it would be faulty if it tried to live up to G&M’s justificationist
requirements.

Finally, G&M get around to criticising the actual
argument instead of mistakenly arguing that it is epistemologically
illegitimate. First they say that “[c]ontrary to what [Lester] says, it seems
to us that emotional responses to opinions often resist efforts to alter them.”
(106-107) But the Muslims did not need to make “efforts” to alter their
emotional responses. They needed only to stop making efforts to work themselves
into a frenzy, partly at the behest of their religious leaders (the ‘anger’ was
a sham put on out of duty to religion). G&M do not deny that, as I put it,
“they more or less chose to react angrily.” And that is the practical point in
this example. For the sake of argument, G&M grant that the Muslims can
control their emotions about Rushdie and his book. They ask why they are
obligated to do so in order to minimise imposed costs, as the “principle says
nothing about people having to change their views about harms [costs] to them.”
But the principle is supposed to be as abstract as possible. So, of course, it
does not specify how it is to be interpreted in practice. The principle says
nothing explicit about even such basic things as self-ownership or how private
property is acquired. These relations are what I was trying to derive.

More relevantly, G&M go on to ask whether requiring
people to become vegetarian would be “required by liberty, if it turns out that
meat eaters could easily alter their preferences about food, but vegetarians
cannot expunge their feelings of revulsion at the thought that some people eat
meat.” The strict answer is ‘yes’ (though with compensation payable that is
half way between the alternative imposed costs to each side). The main reason
that this is indeed, as they see, counterintuitive to our notions of what is acceptable
and liberal is that people are not at all like this. In reality, the typical
meat eater delights in his diet and would miss it hugely (I write having
returned rather disappointed from a luncheon invitation that turned out to be
vegetarian) while the typical vegetarian clearly does not have a comparably
strong feeling of disgust at the mere thought of someone else eating meat and,
in any case, does not need to think about it. So G&M have here exactly the
kind of fantasy criticism (which, following R. M. Hare, I discuss in Escape From Leviathan especially with
respect to utilitarianism) with which our intuitions have not evolved or been
accustomed to deal. However, suppose we take a more realistic analogy with
their example (and one I use in Escape
From Leviathan). Is requiring people to respect land ownership consistent
with liberty if it turns out that nomads can easily alter their preferences but
settlers cannot expunge their feelings about the extreme disutility of not
being able to settle and protect land? Yes, and that is the world we live in.
But things might be different if the vast majority of people were naturally
nomadic.

G&M then suggest that even allowing for “controllable”
preferences it might “be easier to induce Rushdie to curb his (surely
voluntarily adopted) preference for writing novels designed to provoke his
readers than to demand that several million Muslims change their reactions.”
And if that is all the choice ultimately involves (Rushdie versus vast Muslim
disapproval in a one-off situation) then perhaps Rushdie should curb his
preferences to write such novels. But my argument on self-control was not
supposed to stand alone in such an abstract setting. It is merely the first
point I make before bringing in more aspects of the case. My so-called “second
response” about the general consequences of giving in to those who are upset at
what others are thinking about is another part of the whole argument. G&M
think that it is possible to limit the rule simply to examples where “a very large
number of people are greatly upset by the statements made by one person.” Let
us yet again grant them this “convenient auxiliary hypothesis” (but in reality
there are surely also many who value hearing such a person, and his views are
almost always very far from unique: he is simply a well-known proponent). This
still creates a dictatorship of the majority against anyone that the media
currently makes into a scapegoat. Free speech is undermined where it is most
valuable: the lone voice with a different view. What better way to stop all
intellectual progress. Even in science a novel theory will often upset the
establishment. Thus in the long term the suppression of free speech looks
likely to impose more than toleration even here.

But G&M then allow for the sake of argument that “a limited principle of suppression of
offensive speech would, in time, collapse into an unacceptable rule.” (107-108)
Let us grant their auxiliary hypothesis that the limited principle would not
itself impose overall. They then ‘help themselves’ to another auxiliary
hypothesis: that a “natural reading” of minimising imposed costs is that it be
applied not with regard to the long term consequences, but “at that time.” As I
make clear and argue in Escape From Leviathan that imposed costs cannot
reasonably be restricted to the immediate circumstances or even to what people
are consciously aware of (it is sufficient that something flouts what someone
values: an unknown theft or even trespass is an imposed cost), I cannot see why
it should matter what is the “natural reading”—even if we grant that it is the
“natural reading.” But supposing that imposed costs refer only to the immediate
circumstances seems as bizarre as thinking that a utilitarian calculation would
‘naturally’ refer to only the immediate circumstances. And, in any case, how
immediate is “at that time”? The next few seconds, hours, days? G&M think
that I at least “owe” them “some account of how present and future consequences
of a policy are to be assessed.” The short answer is by conjecture and
criticism. How else? I cannot, of course, justify my view. Putting the general
issue in a realistic scenario, do G&M really think that any
long-term policy of forcibly suppressing freedom of communication or belief
could be a lesser cost imposition than the discomfort of occasionally realising
that some people are thinking or believing things of which one strongly
disapproves? As I cannot see how this is likely, I cannot see a realistic
problem with the conception of liberty I am defending and applying.

Of my account of welfare, G&M state that “Lester, unlike Mises and Rothbard, maintains
that interpersonal comparisons of utility are possible.” This bald statement is
seriously misleading. My position includes the following theses: 1) we cannot
help making some rough and ready comparisons of utility; 2) without these we
would not be able to make proper sympathetic sense of individual and social
circumstances; 3) we are not really comparing the same thing, especially when
it comes down to details; 4) we certainly cannot compare utility in any
‘scientific’ detail sufficient to have planning; 5) granting approximate
plausible interpersonal utility comparisons (at least ad arguendo) leads
us back to libertarian policies in practice; and 6) merely dismissing all
welfare comparisons as nonsense, leaves libertarians in a very weak rhetorical
position and appearing callous with it.

G&M offer a
“key objection” to my thesis that minimising imposed costs and maximising
welfare are congruent in practice. This is along similar lines to their
previous auxiliary hypothesis. They posit that the Muslims “dissipate their
angry feelings toward Rushdie” so he lives without imposing costs. However,
“the Muslims would be made extremely happy by Rushdie’s demise ... their total
satisfaction outweighs Rushdie’s reluctance to give up his life.” (109) Thus,
“minimizing imposed costs and maximizing welfare lead to different results” and
my “account of welfare, taken by itself, leads to a counterintuitive outcome, so
it also stands refuted.” First, a “counterintuitive outcome” is not a
refutation. Indeed, if an argument is sound then the truth of the
counterintuition is refuted. But my compatibilist thesis (reconciling liberty,
welfare and anarchy) is explicitly stated at the start of Escape From
Leviathan, and repeated throughout, to be about realistic and long-term
effects. G&M recognise my likely reply from another example I use: “We
would have to appeal to the indirect consequences of allowing any sufficiently
large majority to persecute a sufficiently small minority.” (Escape From
Leviathan, 159) And once more G&M simply help themselves to the
convenient auxiliary hypothesis that “[o]nce more, Lester has simply helped
himself to a convenient auxiliary hypothesis.” They say that without “certain
assumptions about indirect consequences” my thesis would appear to be false. So
they “may regard as true these assumptions about indirect consequences” but the
thesis is damned for being “a textbook case of what Popper terms an
immunization strategy.” No, that is not an immunization strategy. I am not
adding assumptions that effectively mean the thesis cannot be falsified.
I am merely citing a reason why it is not falsified. And to grant the
“indirect” defence, as they do, is ipso facto to concede that it is
defended. There is nothing illegitimate about appealing to the indirect and
long-term consequences unless I am mistaken about these. Again, in a realistic
long-term situation (which is what I state my compatibility thesis is about:
not singular or imaginary cases), do G&M really believe that it is on
balance a less cost-imposing principle to allow any majority to persecute or
murder any single person they merely dislike?

Overall, I feel
that G&M have made some relevant points that have enabled me usefully to
clarify my arguments. But if they had not kept raising the erroneous point
about auxiliary hypotheses they might have focussed on and criticised my
arguments more cogently.

Top 50 books of all time : by Old Hickory:- "I have limited the selection to the books I have read. I keep to the norm of not recommending to others books I have yet to read. Clearly, books I have not read by now suggests a judgement of some sort."